


Cool Comfort

by sensitivebore



Series: Lady Lights [5]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:00:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah and Elsie, and ice and fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cool Comfort

Sarah is out behind the shop, gathering the produce they grow in pots on the tiny walled terrace, and Elsie has no compunction about opening the letter. It's some sort of official business, after all, a thin white envelope with black typed lettering. Probably a notice about taxes or their business license renewal or some such, so she slits the paper, pulls out a single short page.

_"Miss O'Brien, we regret to inform you…"_

She raises a hand to cover her mouth as she reads on with a heavy sigh, a little pain in her heart. One of Sarah's brothers has died unexpectedly in a mining accident, somewhere down in Wales where he had went for the summer to earn some money. Elsie is irrationally angry at the writer of the letter. Why did they have to send this thing to them, this hateful little missive that would ruin the lovely day they'd been having?

It had been a busy month, very busy, and the till had rang almost nonstop with purchases of tea, of finger sandwiches, of Sarah's unbeatable fairy cakes. It had been such a good month, in fact, that they had taken the extremely rare pleasure of not opening the shop today. Had decided to tidy the place, get in the tomatoes, have tea, and then go wander around, get lost together. Elsie had wanted to take Sarah to the water's edge and walk with her, collect shells.

Now it seems, there is this. There is this and Sarah will be devastated because every one of them — Elsie can never work out for sure exactly how many of the O'Brien clan there is — holds a place in her heart and she rarely gets to see them. And now — Elsie checks the letter — Sean is dead and buried and she hadn't even been able to attend the funeral, to have that much.

The back door slams and she hears Sarah tumble her small skirt-full of vegetables in the sink for scrubbing. Elsie smiles a little. Has tried to tell her time and time again that's why aprons were invented and that it was hardly proper for a lady to be lifting her skirt and exposing her slip just to bring in tomatoes. Sarah had guffawed, dismissed her, asked her if she was  _really_  supposed to put on an apron to step two feet outside of her own back door, pick some vegetables, and come back in? Had kissed her and told her she was a proper loon.

"Sarah?"

She appears in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Elsie's heart pulls and twists; there is no job more miserable than being the messenger, because the messenger delivers the coup de grace. Sean had been alive and well for Sarah, he still is, still will be until Elsie tells her. She's pretty and relaxed today, smiling with teeth; she's also been incorrigible ever since they woke up. Has slipped fingers and hands against Elsie's neck, her hip, her waist. Had stood behind her when Elsie was washing the breakfast dishes, kissing a shoulder, cupping a breast. Elsie herself has been lighthearted, had leaned back into the lovely advances instead of primly swatting her away, had given her a naughty whispered promise of later, yes, later.

Now this.

She keeps her voice quiet, gentle. "You've got a letter, turnip. Come and read it."

Sarah stiffens. Elsie is not one given to easy endearments the way she is; she is  _turnip_ only when she is sick, when she is especially tired, when she has particularly painful menses. When she is sad and missing her family.

She swallows, wipes her fingers another few times. "Read it for me, darlin'. My hands are all dirty." Anything to stall for time, anything to keep another moment of this nice day, anything to not hear whatever is in that hateful envelope.

Elsie cringes, but steels herself, makes herself be brave and reminds herself that any shouting, any anger, any thrown book or curse or impatient brush-off is not directed at her. Reminds herself that outward displays of pain are all right. This is her Sarah, and Elsie will let her do what she needs to do until she can hold her, until she can wrap her arms around her and soak up some of the pain.

"I did, I thought it was business, but — I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Your Sean is dead, Sarah. Dead in a mining accident two weeks ago now."

She becomes still, like a girl playing Statue, continues to wipe compulsively at her hands, her fingers, then gives a rough shrug. "Well, I always told him not to go near those mines. He had to go for the big money, didn't he? I said, Sean, ye' don't need to be goin' down there and mucking about, people die doing that work. Turns out he did."

Elsie closes her eyes briefly. This is always how she deals with pain — she makes light of it, makes nasty jokes, acts as if she doesn't particularly care. This is the first step.

She gets up hesitantly and follows her, finds her scrubbing angrily at the vegetables in the sink. Scrub, slam, splash. Scrub, slam, splash. She wants so badly to reach out, to touch her, to kiss and hold her and let her cry, but they aren't at that step yet. Elsie gropes for something to say, for something to do. She takes a clean towel, begins to quietly dry the produce.

"Jus' leave it be, I've told you how many times there's no point in dryin' it when you can just let it drain on the board. Why do ye' always insist on making more work for yourself?" Sarah pushes her bangs back, continues her task. Carefully, Elsie puts the first tomato in the pretty wooden bowl on the counter. Reaches for another, dries it. A third.

"I said jus' leave it be, why can't you just listen? Don't you have anything else to do besides be in here in my way?" Scrub, slam, splash.

Elsie takes a deep, steadying breath. It's just noise, she thinks. Just noise that she has to get out before anything else. But she won't leave her alone like this, because if she did, she'd just pull deeper and deeper inside herself, curl in on her pain. Disappear out behind the shop to smoke and brood and pick a fight with the widow next door over something, anything, and they have been together long enough that Elsie knows Sarah does want to be held, she does want to be comforted and kissed and whispered to.

She just has no idea how to ask. Elsie understands that, too, because she handles her own pain in a singularly unhealthy way herself. While Sarah becomes fire and hot temper and anger, Elsie turns to ice. Ice and closed lips and cold hands. The first time that had happened, Sarah had been confused and hurt, didn't understand, but now she knows. Now whenever Elsie shutters herself against the world, Sarah simply doesn't stand for it. She barges in anyway, all warm hands and hot kisses and strong arms wound around her. All fire melting all that ice.

Now Elsie has to get past old haunts and stupid old fears that still play at the edge of her mind, now she has to find a way to cool all of this hurting flame.

Tentative fingers curl over Sarah's shoulder, first one, then the other. She ignores her, is scrubbing out the sink now, washing out the earth from the tomatoes. Elsie steps close, as close as she can, rests her cheek against Sarah's hair, presses her breasts lightly to the tense back, places a small, tender kiss between the scapulae. Whispers with her smallest, most uncertain voice.

"I love you."

The busy hands in the sink stop splashing, stop crashing.

"Don't."

Instead of pulling away, fingers flex and take a firmer hold.

"I love you."

Sarah throws down the scrub brush into the sink, where it clangs with a loud rattle of metal.

"Damn't, Elsie, just let me be. I need — I know you're tryin' to help, but I need somewhere — " She turns, holds Elsie's face in her hands, looks at her. "I need somewhere to  _put this_ , do ye' understand? Sean is dead and had two babies at home and I'll cry later when I'm not so damn mad about it all. I jus' need somewhere to  _put this_."

Elsie bites her lip, thinks for a moment. She's not sure if it's the right thing to do, but she thinks maybe it is. Thinks about how lost and free Sarah is when they're in bed at night, thinks about how all of those long muscles tense and relax as she sweats, as she goes at her lover's body with everything she has in her. Elsie never knew that a woman could be so ferocious about lovemaking, could be so aggressive and strong and beautiful. Had never known that she could be laid open and taken that way by anyone, much less a chippy Irish girl with pretty eyes and a mean, smart mouth.

 _Somewhere to put it._  She wonders. Looks at Sarah and raises her fingers, begins to unbutton her dress. Whispers.

"Put it here, then."

Pulls her dress down to her waist, pushes it off over her hips. Starts on the hooks of her corset, doesn't drop her eyes as Sarah looks at her first in disbelief — for this is bold and not proper at all, not in the least — and then with growing want, with a growing hot need that needs to be quenched. Elsie thinks maybe, just maybe, they can use all of that anger. Use all of that anger somewhere besides packets of cigarettes and broken crockery and squabbles.

The corset falls to the floor.

Sarah is watching, almost caught, almost as if she's wondering how far Elsie will actually go, if this is an invitation or a striptease or just a distraction. Surely she will stop soon, surely she will stop while still modestly covered. It's broad daylight in the middle of the kitchen, after all, not snugged into their bed in soft lamplight.

The sheer underskirt follows. The stockings. Sarah swallows, watches.

"Put it here, then, love."

She's left in nothing but her short thin chemise, the little lace-edged shift that barely covers the curve of her bottom, barely conceals the vee between her legs. She smooths her palms over her lover's shoulders and that's enough, that finishes it, because Elsie is suddenly pulled hard into warm arms and they are kissing, kissing to take breath away, Sarah is kissing her with no eye toward gentleness or easiness or going slow, all the things she tries to do at night with Elsie, all the things she tries to master so as not to scare her or make her feel overpowered. She breaks the kiss for a long, hot breath, sucks at her lips. Has the control left to make sure of this, to make sure they both understand what it is.

"Are ye' sure about this, darlin'? Cause if ye' are, let's go to bed."

Elsie can feel her last string of hesitation, can feel Sarah holding back with a single thread to make sure, to make sure she can handle it, to make sure she won't be hurt and tears want to well up in her eyes but she wills them back. It is her brother that is dead, it is her pain and her anger that needs soothing, but still. She makes sure of  _her_. And this is why it was worth it. Giving up Downton, living carefully on a small income, the sometimes exhausting work of the shop.  _This_.

"I'm sure, and no. Not the bedroom." Her cheeks burn at what she's about to say next but she thinks, maybe, she can. Maybe something different, for a change. For this.

"Here."

Elsie can see that final thread snap behind grey eyes and there are hot, eager hands gripping her hips, her ass, lifting her onto the kitchen table and their mouths are sealed together again in those burning kisses, wet and heated, as Sarah's fingers find the hem of chemise and yank it up, shove it up over her thighs, as she pushes between her naked legs and Elsie wraps them around her. Locks her in place with strong calves and hooked ankles and she wants whatever Sarah wants to give her, she wants to give her a place to lose herself and find herself, a place to feel safe and shattered, a place to take it up and let it go.

"Here."

Sarah has her then, there on the table, has her with merciless hands and rough mouth, with fingers palm deep in tight wetness, with hard strokes on a swollen clitoris, with teeth on skin; it doesn't end after Elsie's first soft scream of climax but goes on, continues unabated with pretty legs over shoulders and moist peach lips on glistening pink flesh, with hands twisted in hair and hips rising helplessly to meet the beautiful assault, with hard sucks and harder licks; it doesn't end after Elsie's sob of completion then, either, but blurs again into Sarah's clothes finally coming off, mixing and mating with those already scattered on the floor, it blurs again as she pulls her lover to the edge of the table where she interlaces their legs, alternates lovely strong thigh for lovely strong thigh until they are scissored just so and begins to grind and thrust, moaning deep in her chest, swearing, cursing, and while she may scold her during the day for it now it just serves to heighten her excitement and Elsie clings to her, urges her to find her climax, traces her hot face with tender, encouraging fingers, with cool palms but Sarah isn't finished with her and pushes more strongly with her right thigh, tells her in no uncertain terms  _I want you to again_  and so though she is nearly crying with delirium now, almost weeping with the aftermath of her orgasms, she holds tightly to Sarah's shoulders, to her neck, and lets herself be shoved off of that precipice one more time and this time she doesn't go alone, no, this time she goes with the sound of her own name being frantically said over and over as if in some holy and mysterious chant.

And now, as Elsie had hoped, had suspected, there are the tears. The heaving, shuddering sobs against her breast and she holds her, holds this beautiful, damaged creature that she fell in love with despite trying so hard not to. Holds this woman that breaks her open in the best of ways and begins to put her together again. Sarah lifts her tear-stained face — cooler, cooler now, some of that consuming fire gone, some of it spent melting ice — and runs a hand through her hair.

"Ye' were right."

Gives Elsie a soft, delicate kiss, takes one in return.

"Here."


End file.
